Straight Talk
By Vivekanand Jha*
Last evening in Hyderabad, the frightening sight of a mob of fanatics shouting, ‘Sar tan se juda‘ (The head should be severed from the body), sent shock waves across the country as the entire episode looked as if heralding the arrival of the Taliban at our doorstep.
The crowd, almost reminiscent of gun-totting Taliban, had assembled in huge numbers in Hyderabad to demand the arrest of T.Raja, a Bharatiya Janata Party legislator, who was suspended from the party after his infamous remarks against Prophet Mohammed. T.Raja, in the wake of his arrest, had obtained bail.
The scary sight of mobocracy that purportedly sought to hand over the death to a person they considered had no right to live or else, is a challenge to the very rule of law. Can such Kangaroo courts that take recourse to pronounce capital punishment upon someone be tolerated in a civilised society?
‘Sar tan se juda‘ is seemingly a new frenzy orchestrated by emboldened fanatics to subvert the law of the land. The Hyderabad incident poses a daunting challenge to the State where the police were a mute spectator to the fanatics shouting ‘Sar tan se juda‘.
This mobocracy is antithetical to a modern democracy and needs to be dealt with firmly. Significantly, this type of mindset does envisage the retardation of humanity towards the pre-historic days when mankind lived in the jungle and killed each other.
Small wonder then, the death threat issued so effortlessly, acts as a catalyst to take the human civilisation back to the jungle days, apart from being a deterrent for the moderate voice among Muslims to protest against such human transgression, lest ‘Sar tan se juda‘ might visit such person raising their voice against the fanaticism.
However, in view of the water being neck deep, the solitary antidote would be that, the entire nation has to rise against this latest evil which has popped up its ugly head, especially the moderate Muslims in particular, or else the degeneration of the human race revisiting it to take it back to its earlier days in the jungle, cannot be ruled out.
The Hyderabad incident also reflects that the hornet’s nest stirred by Nupur Sharma by her remarks on Prophet Mohammed on May 26, 2022, does not appear to recede, and has only fuelled Islamic fundamentalism which is showing no sign of abatement, despite the matter pertaining to Nupur Sharma’s purported blasphemy is sub-judice and the apex court is the final arbiter to sit upon judgement on her acts of commission. This is highlighted by the brutal murders of the tailor Kanhaiya Lal in Udaipur, and Umesh Kolhe in Maharashtra, for supporting Nupur Sharma are ominous. One of the young engineering students, Nishank Rathore had purportedly supported Nupur Sharma and was found dead on the railway track, with a message sent to his father, “Gustakh E Nabi ki aek saja, dhar tan se juda“( The act of blasphemy has the solitary reward: The head to be severed from the body). Another boy, Ankit Kumar Jha, from Sitamarhi, was attacked and got critically injured when he was watching the video of Nupur Sharma.
Fanatics have apparently developed the feast of frenzy whereunder they extended their direct challenge to the rule of law, the State. The rule of law would be subjugated to the whimsicalities of these fundamentalists, and it is high time for the State to act and check its rise.
*Vivekanand Jha is an author, academician and public intellectual. The views expressed are personal.
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